


petite tragédie

by spock



Category: Burnt (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Penny Dreadful Fusion, Dysfunctional Relationships, Enemies With Benefits, Extra Treat, M/M, Pre-Movie(s), ToT: Chocolate Box, ToT: Monster Mash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-28 01:48:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8425927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spock/pseuds/spock
Summary: Enter PROTEUS.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Liviania](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liviania/gifts).



There were creations that predated him, a progression of poor bastards that hadn't lived long beyond the reanimation process, unnamed and unknown like soldiers in some grand war who hadn't been of enough importance to warrant anything more than a mass grave with some big rock with meaningless words placed on top. If it was a case of their bodies having failed them or that of Jean-Luc finding them to be lacking, Reece hadn't the slightest idea. 

Jean-Luc always has a gobbet of knowledge poised to bloom from betwixt his lips. Bite-sized morsels, as if intelligence was acquired via tasting menu. His favorite to feed to Reece was this: in the testing phase you have to make a dish in its entirety, from start to finish. There are never corners that can be cut, no means to conserve. The same choice of meat that would be selected in the end result must be used, there can be no change in cut or temperature or plating; all must be done with the same precision that would be employed had the dish's final destiny been to be carried off to the floor by service. Then it is tasted, deemed to be in need of more lemon or any other number of often frivolous things at that state, and the rest is thrown away, the chef eager to begin again with his new knowledge that had been gleaned from latest binned attempt. 

Reece had been the first to survive his birth, such as it was, and was granted the dubious honor of being Jean-Luc's original apprentice.

Adam had come second, but his was the result of a recipe perfected. Reece had been there when Adam had drawn his first breath, watched Jean-Luc cradle his golden head and befit him with the same name God had given to his chosen creation. Adam had a different sentiment fed to him, one of apples and oysters and how they could not be improved, but it was a chef's duty to always try.

It doesn't take long for Reece to begin to wonder why Jean-Luc hadn't named Reece after one of the angels instead.

Lucifer, certainly, would've been a more apt fit.

 

 

* * *

 

Their shift ends at one but they rarely manage to escape anytime before two. 

Reece stumbles from the back entrance with soap still bubbling at the tips of his hair, hands raw from where it'd been his turn to scrub down the range, only half-shrugged into his coat, a weight that feels akin to that of Atlas’ burden to Reece’s weary shoulders. Adam isn't much better, just as soaked, his longer hair curling into tangles under his chin, miserable in the too-short uniform he's been wearing for eighteen hours. He'd accidentally put on Reece's set when they'd stumbled home from the pub to change the night prior and hadn't thought to keep a second pair of his own in the kitchen, so stuck with them he was.

Adam's head turns toward Rue des Panoyaux, a hound that’s caught the scent of its prey. At the end of their block he grabs hold of Reece's wrist to pull them in Le Saint-Sauveur’s direction. Reece resists. 

"I'm going home tonight," Reece says, declarative and strong, the voice of their father. The voice of God. 

It's nearly four in the morning, the pair of them kept late to continue their work on what will eventually be the summer menu, though even Reece, who has been through it all for forty-seven seasons now, still struggles to see the trees for the forest and find solace that there is an end in sight. Which is of course because there _isn't_. Once the summer arrives it'll be time to begin work on autumn. 

They have to come up with all new ideas in six weeks. They have to be back in the kitchen in three hours. Reece doesn't want to be around any living thing until his alarm goes off. "I'm sure Michel and Max have a seat at their table waiting for you." 

Adam stands at the edge of the sidewalk, teetering between stepping out onto the street to his left or continuing on the path with Reece to his right. A comet caught between two orbits. 

They've faced this impasse before, the few times Reece possesses a dash of better judgment and opts-out of what all the chefs fondly refer to as their second job. Reece has no idea what Adam does on the nights where they go separate ways, though half the time he hardly knows what Adam is thinking at all, even when he can see what it is that Adam’s doing. It's never a good thing when they aren't together; sometimes Adam doesn't come home for days on end, sometimes weeks. He arrives at work like a blizzard, unavoidable, and then leaves to stay with whichever newly made friend is willing to share their fix, whatever woman has fallen in love with and wants to cure him, for however short a time it lasts.

Reece had been worried at first, fully expecting a summons to one of Paris' many hospitals, Jan-Luc furious at him for not taking proper care of his golden child. He still hasn't the faintest clue if their sort could be reanimated a second time, but he has no illusions that Jean-Luc wouldn’t have given it the ol' college try for Adam.

He'd caught sight of Tony around the third time Adam pulled one of his off-hours disappearing acts, face the perfect model of concern. Every spare moment that didn't require Tony’s presence in the dining room had him hovering devoted at Adam's side as if that would stop Adam from stealing away into the night. Adam, still high from whatever concoction of things he'd taken before showing up for work that evening, loved every moment of it. _Mon petit chou_ , Adam would say, fondly, giving just enough attention feed Tony's own addiction, a precise dosage expertly given to keep Tony coming back for more. 

After seeing how pathetic Tony was, he'd learned how to hide it within himself, hadn't wanted anyone to see him as another one of Adam's ever-faithful flock. 

Reece had approached Tony that night and brought him back to the tiny little hovel Jean-Luc rented for Reece and Adam. He brought Tony to his bed and let Tony fuck him, knees by his ears, kept his eyes open and stared into Tony's as they sought an end with one another, whispered Welsh nothings that came with Reece's body to him throughout, trying to replace horrid, American-tinged French from both of their ears.

He still worries even now, wants so badly to ask where it is that Adam goes, but him not knowing is the whole point, Reece supposes. He knows all Adam's dealers because they're all his as well. The places Adam runs off to in the five hours between their work ending and the start of another shift, the people Adam meets and keeps from him, they're for Adam and Adam alone.

Reece doesn't go out on the nights that Adam runs off. He waits at home for him, feels as if his whole reason for existing is waiting for Adam, keeping the phone close to his bed, ready to collect him from the docks, the train station, the bus depot, some rundown club on opposite end of the Seine. Reece goes to collect him and brings him home while neither of them acts as if anything had happened since the time they saw each other last, as if nothing was amiss.

The first and only time since then that Adam had broken their usual routine had been that night when Reece had been with Tony, Adam returning to see the two of them in bed together. He'd pivoted himself right back out the door and hadn't shown up for dinner service at all, another first. He'd returned bright and early the day following, taking the tongue-lashing Jean-Luc extolled to him with good humor and blood-shot eyes.

Tony, fraught with guilt that shouldn't ever have existed, weighed down with what Reece could only imagine was the grand betrayal to his obsession and fantasy relationship with Adam, hadn't even entertained the thought of dating Reece, though Reece had been open to the idea, and had kept his distance from him ever since. Reece had been naive enough to believe that there were no sides in their kitchen, but it was obvious that Tony had chosen Adam's.

Reece still isn’t entirely sure how he feels about the reality of a relationship with him being so easily cast aside for the mere possibility of one with Adam, no matter how slim of a possibility it might have been. In reality, Reese realizes that he was rejected for a fantasy. It marked a distressingly long pattern of Adam ruining Tony's chances with other men.

He makes a point of never asking where Adam goes and Adam never volunteers the information. Reece doesn't ever tell Adam that his return never brings him relief as Tony or Jean-Luc or any of their coworkers, because all it means is that now all Reece’s mind does is begin a countdown, awaiting the night Adam leaves again.

"I guess I'll come with," Adam says, as if he's doing Reece a favor.

Reece supposes that he won't mind the company. It's not as if Adam really counts as a living person, so his original rationale still stands.

 

 

#

 

Theirs is a little two bedroom flat in theory, kitchen bleeding itself into the floorplan of their living room, which only consists of a broken-down couch they may or may not have stolen off the back of a charity shop's truck, a pathetic little thing that only ever sees use when Max can't be bothered to drag himself back to the arrondissement du Panthéons and the room he somehow manages to sublet there.

The theory breaks apart largely due to the fact that Adam has never slept in the room that is supposed to be his, not from the very first day, when Jean-Luc had brought Adam to life and told Reece that he could no longer live with the man and his family, that he'd taken care to rent a nice two room place for Reece and his new sibling to reside in.

The sibling sentiment hadn't lasted overly long. Reece had never been averse to it, even with his jealousy and resentment, but something about playing favorites had soured Jean-Luc to the concept. He had his daughter, whom he adored, and Adam, who would carry on his legacy. Reece had been like a second son in the old age of French kings, superfluous once his elder had survived into the age of majority. A natural child would have to be suffered, but with Reece there hadn't been any reason to stick with propriety. With Adam's birth Reece ceased to be Jean-Luc's child, and was reborn yet a third time as Jean-Luc’s employee.

Adam, new the world and terrified, had stuck close to Reece's side for the duration of the taxi ride to their new home, up four flights of stairs to what could've only just technically been advertised as a furnished flat, and crawled right in beside Reece to sleep.

And there he had stayed.

Sometimes Reece wonders if Tony had noticed the smell of Adam on Reece's sheets during their wayward night of coupling. The less charitable part of himself supposes that it might have been the reason Tony had gotten it up in the first place. The part he generally makes a point of ignoring proposes that the same could be said about himself.

Reece makes a line straight to the bedroom, dropping clothes behind him like a snake shedding its skin. When he collapses into their bed, he is naked. When Adam joins him, he is fully clothed, damp with sweat and the light misting of rain that accompanied them on their walk home. 

It’s with a not-completely exaggerated sigh that Reece rolls onto his knees and pulls Adam's — _Reece's_ — shirt over his head, tugs down stolen pants that have left angry indents where they've spent the day squeezing into the meat of Adam's calf, turning the band of skin there nearly as white as the mismatched skin of Adam's repurposed foot. Reece has always wondered how Adam explained that to the random women he's slept with, but it's entirely possible that they themselves were too strung out of their minds to notice that anything was amiss.

When Adam is just as naked as him, Reece rolls away and drags himself under the covers, eager to sleep. Adam crawls under with him, settling closer to the other edge of the bed. It's a mistake to call it Adam's side, because Adam never stays on either side long enough to take ownership of it.

His place is any that allows him to press close alongside wherever Reece has dropped down to.  

It always happens so suddenly, generally between one blink and the next, in Reece's estimation. Adam comes closer to him, leans into him, brushes his lips against Reece's ear, his jaw, places his hand on Reece's stomach, warm as a brand.

It's up to Reece to help them kiss properly, his hand its own brand along Adam's jaw, angling him properly so that their mouths can come together in a continuous seam. He shifts and raises himself so that Adam is stretched out underneath him, gravity pushing Reece's weight down so that they slot together, skin to skin, a heavy friction made better by the slight tug of the hair on his chest catching against that of Adam's.

Adam breaks their kiss to stare up into Reece's eyes, uses the backs of his fingers to brush Reece's cheek. "Do you think I was like this before?"

Reece sighs. It's a conversation he's had with himself many times, but never with Adam. At first he had expected it, this level of introspection that is so uniquely theirs, finally having another soul to share the burden and questions with. When it hadn't come, Reece figured that Adam was too focused on the cooking, too focused on the lifestyle, that he hadn't had time for it. It appears that he was wrong. Reece shares with him the answer he has decided for himself. "That man wasn't you. This isn't a before and after situation; that was him, this is you."

The answer doesn't appear to have sated Adam in the least. He gets his elbows under him and rises up onto them, bringing his and Reece's faces level. "Fine," Adam says, like it’s a concession and not acknowledgment of fact. "But is he why I'm such a fuckup?" They're both still hard, Adam's change in position resulting in Reece's dick becoming trapped between Adam's thighs. Reece doesn't want to talk about any of this, wants to get back to what they were starting, finish it, and then steal whatever sleep he can before he was to wake up in a few hours, hours that grow fewer with each moment this conversation drags on.

"Men our age don't die of natural causes and leave behind perfectly good bodies, Adam." Reece answers the root of Adam’s questioning because he's always been shit at refusing Adam anything, even the things he hasn’t asked. Especially those things. "There are very good odds that the guys who came before us liked drugs, and that didn't go away just because we took over."

Reece dips down a second time and kisses Adam again, works his hips so that he's fucking the soft skin of Adam's thighs, edging towards the curve of his ass. Even with Adam propped up as he is, they're still close enough that the head of Adam's dick digs itself into Reece's stomach, something that Reece hopes will finally make him stop.

"It's not fair," Adam says. "Why couldn't we have had a clean slate?"

Reece grits his teeth, but otherwise doesn't bother in biting his words back. "Oh, nut the fuck _up_ , Adam. Nobody asks to be born: not babies and not us. There's no such thing as a clean fucking slate. If it isn't genes holding you back then it's shit parents, poverty, or any other number of horrible fucking things. All the shite gone wrong in your pathetic life is your own fucking fault, and that goes double for the dealers lurkin' in the alleyway like sharks out for blood, in case you thought any of us haven’t noticed. Take some fuckin' responsibility for yourself."

Reece sucks in a lungful of air, pissed off and itching for a fag. It's a craving he's had since the night he'd first awakened, a preference that had come from Reece-the-prior. The difference between Adam and him is that Reece is willing to acknowledge that it was his choice to keep the habit up, and ultimately it'll be his choice to quit. He thrusts again, still aroused despite his anger, and says, "Now are you gonna let me fuck you or should I just take myself to bed then?"

 

 

#

 

Adam tears at him, trying to continue their conversation without words, Reece doing his best to change the subject with kisses and thrusts and a too-tight grip on Adam's dick. When he comes inside of Adam it's with his eyes shut tight, Adam's cheek is pressed tight to his, lips murmuring some nonsense into Reece's ear; for what feels like the millionth time, Reece wonders how some American boy at the tail end of his teens ended up in Paris, why he died, if he and Reece — some poor Welsh bastard who hadn't made it nearly as far from home in his equally short life as Adam had — had known each other in the life before this one. 

Reece wonders if they're ever going to be alright, or if history is doomed to repeat itself.

 

* * *

 

Adam pulls his disappearing act after that night’s service, which Reece expected. 

It takes him four years to come back.

Reece hadn't expected that.


End file.
